Microsoft sidewinder force feedback wheel control panel

As Microsoft SideWinder designers thought to every detail, when the Force Feedback effects are enabled the center button is light in green, or else no green light is displayed. The SideWinder Game Controller 3. But you can also test and experience all the force feedback effects.

The SideWinder Central panel offers quick access to the sidewinder applets and settings. The SideWinder Profile tool helps users creating their own game profiles or use existing ones in order to assign games shortcuts to the force feedback buttons.

The SideWinder Tray icon will help you activating or inactivating a profile for a specific game with a simple right mouse click. Game Trials. First you have to know that to enjoy the Force Feedback effects your game should support and use the Microsoft Direct X API: most of the newer games support it, but there may be some compatibility issues in the older versions!

I tried the force feedback wheel with several games and I found only one word to describe it - Unbelievable! Several times while cruising around Chicago in Midtown Madness the realism was so great I felt like I had to go get gas! After the police start to follow you and you get on the expressway this game is almost like the real thing.

The wheel is provided with Microsoft Monster Truck Madness II and really brings a spicy side to this old but funny game. The Force Feedback Effects are strong enough. Also I just want to write here that some of our colleagues wrote that the wheel is noisy but really the force feedback effects are produced in silence! Final Comments. It offers what all the serious drivers gamers are always need: driving precision and control, wide variety of buttons, incredible force feedback effects, solid set and an easy-to-use attach mechanism.

What do you want to ask more? Local telephone and long distance charges may apply. Support Center. Windows Windows Me. Windows Server Windows Vista. News Search. This approach to input gathering is a good fit for most games because their logic typically runs in a deterministic loop rather than being event-driven; it's also typically simpler to interpret game commands from input gathered all at once than it is from many single inputs gathered over time.

You poll a racing wheel by calling GetCurrentReading ; this function returns a RacingWheelReading that contains the state of the racing wheel. In addition to the racing wheel state, each reading includes a timestamp that indicates precisely when the state was retrieved.

The timestamp is useful for relating to the timing of previous readings or to the timing of the game simulation. Many of the racing wheel controls are optional or support different variations even in the required controls, so you have to determine the capabilities of each racing wheel individually before you can process the input gathered in each reading of the racing wheel.

The optional controls are the handbrake, clutch, and pattern shifter; you can determine whether a connected racing wheel supports these controls by reading the HasHandbrake , HasClutch , and HasPatternShifter properties of the racing wheel, respectively. The control is supported if the value of the property is true ; otherwise it's not supported. Additionally, the controls that may vary are the steering wheel and pattern shifter.

The steering wheel can vary by the degree of physical rotation that the actual wheel can support, while the pattern shifter can vary by the number of distinct forward gears it supports. You can determine the greatest angle of rotation the actual wheel supports by reading the MaxWheelAngle property of the racing wheel; its value is the maximum supported physical angle in degrees clock-wise positive which is likewise supported in the counter-clock-wise direction negative degrees.

You can determine the greatest forward gear the pattern shifter supports by reading the MaxPatternShifterGear property of the racing wheel; its value is the highest forward gear supported, inclusive—that is, if its value is 4, then the pattern shifter supports reverse, neutral, first, second, third, and fourth gears. Finally, some racing wheels support force feedback through the steering wheel.

You can determine whether a connected racing wheel supports force feedback by reading the WheelMotor property of the racing wheel. Force feedback is supported if WheelMotor is not null ; otherwise it's not supported. For information on how to use the force feedback capability of racing wheels that support it, see Force feedback overview. Each of the racing wheel buttons—the four directions of the D-pad, the Previous Gear and Next Gear buttons, and 16 additional buttons—provides a digital reading that indicates whether it's pressed down or released up.

For efficiency, button readings aren't represented as individual boolean values; instead they're all packed into a single bitfield that's represented by the RacingWheelButtons enumeration. Racing wheels are equipped with additional buttons used for UI navigation such as the View and Menu buttons.

These buttons are not a part of the RacingWheelButtons enumeration and can only be read by accessing the racing wheel as a UI navigation device. For more information, see UI Navigation Device.

The button values are read from the Buttons property of the RacingWheelReading structure. Because this property is a bitfield, bitwise masking is used to isolate the value of the button that you're interested in. The button is pressed down when the corresponding bit is set; otherwise, it's released up.

The pedals are decent but not anything to write home about. Both feet are needed to use the pedals, though, since they are a little far apart to effectively use one foot and keep the pedals on the floor. A couple of times, while slamming on the brakes, I pushed the pedals out of position see the spaz remark above.

The highlight of the wheel for me at least is the two shifter paddles behind it. These are perfect and help performance in any game. For those who usually play racing games with a keyboard or joystick, unless you are L33T, you stick with the automatic transmission, which usually costs you some performance in game. They allow you to use the manual transmission easily in any racing game. The SideWinder software allows you to create macro-like schemes that give you the ability to map several commands to one button.

The software lets you program functionality for all six buttons and both shifter paddles. You simply enter a name for the command, and then enter the key or keys that you want to be sent when you push the button. You can save sets of these commands off as a scheme, which allows you to have different button combinations for different games. Does the Sidewinder work in the Windows control panel. Type joy. It will not work until you do this. I also use this ancient gem of input device.

Legend has it that Indiana Jones was looking for the Holy Grail in an old crypt in the desert. At least, until someone finally makes a worthy replacement for it. Well, and Brunner. But who can afford it? I literally was hoping for FS20 to support FFB and MS to do something about the lack of hardware as they seem to be the only ones who might actually be able to pull that off.

Using SimFFB for now to config and at least have a properly feeling trim there. BTW I prefer to map my devices by myself. I used to love the way the FFB worked for trim on the Sidewinder, pity I only have the base sidewinder now and sold all my other peripherals years ago when my interest waned.